While the basics of bookkeeping are obeyed by accounting software, software companies that have many different versions of software for example, an entry level, mid level and high level version, add additional features to get more form the bookkeeping basics, for example, project costing and invoice printing. The software company usually ends up trying to force you up their different levels by withholding useful features from a lower level version. The price the lower level version is set very low to entice you into their product range, knowing that you will most probably stay with them as changing your accounts software is a major task. They also sometimes tease you with a feature that half works in the mid level version, but to get to use the full feature you need to buy the highest level version. People fell betrayed by their account software supplier. They feel that all the software company wants is to confuse you and in so do so get hold of more of your money for no extra benefits.

During the week I got hit with a few problems because software that looked like it could do the job fell down at the last hurdle, as the feature we needed was only partially available and the Sales rep who sold the software to the client had left the business suddenly. We spent a lot of time figuring out work arounds. And while we did find work arounds they are not ideal solutions and mistakes can still be made.

Here are some examples from well known software that aksks the question “What do they use to run their business, if they keep leaving or make the these features useless”
You need to remember to choose an option on a second screen before proceeding, but their is nothing to remind you to do this and you can continue without entering the information on the second page and thus have your data analysed incorrectly.

• The software is not network ready. It will only run on one computer. If you need to have more people using the software you can’t.
• You can analyse you sales to a project only sell services but not if you sell products
• You cannot change the layout of an invoice or statement no matter how unprofessional it looks
• You can compare Year to Date actuals to YTD budgets but you can’t compare monthly budgets to monthly actuals figures
• Lodgement totals do not have to agree to the total of the individual cheques lodged
• You can’t edit a payment entered incorrectly and you can’t reverse it out
• If your sell and buy to the same person they must have the same account code in the debtors ledger as they do in the creditors ledger
• Inability to print out an aged creditors report showing each individual unpaid invoice.

These seem minor issues until you try giving a managing director a report and must export it to Microsoft Excel and reformat it before you can hand him the report. This is  huge waste of time. You must remember that the sales person selling you the accounts software probably knows less than you about accounts than you and they are also not running a company and don’t understand the relevance of the options that are left out of the accounts package and how they can be crucial to your business.

Rules about buying software

• Do NOT buy an accounts software package based on price
• Buy accounts software based on the fact that it can work in the way your business works. If you buy and sell in foreign currencies, than you need software that can deal with foreign currencies.
• If you want stock control, then you need software that controls stock and not just put descriptions on your invoice
• Get adequate training and make sure the training each person receives training that is relevant to the position they hold. If you don’t manage stock, then you don’t need training in stock control
• Training will cost at least four times the cost of the accounts software. Installation is not training and is a an additional cost
• Accounts software trainers don’t always know anything about accounts and they know very little about you business and how it works
• Don’t let a software seller force you to change the way your business runs because it suits his software

You need software support. You don’t always need software upgrade support.
Software support is crucial after the installation, setup and training on your software. There will always be issues. Data may get corrupted, something may need to be explained again etc. Support can be expensive and the level of support you receive can vary from someone who knows what they are talking about down to others who only know how the software works, but knows nothing about accounts and you end teaching them over the phone about bookkeeping principles. The support hours are usually 9am to 5pm, so if you open outside of these hours you may need to pay a premium for out of hours support.

You don’t always have to have the latest version of the software. If the software does the job you need it to do, then why update. But remember that eventually your version will go out of date and you will have to upgrade. This may be costly in terms of upgrade costs and retraining. Also if you are running a Windows 98 computer and buy a new computer with Windows 7 on it, the older accounts software may not be compatible with windows 7 and you may be forced to upgrade then.